---
title: The prince staggered, lost his balance and fell backwards into the r… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The prince staggered, lost his balance and fell backwards into the river, where the mud and the rushes caught him and held him fast. Who acts: prince, mud. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 40

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The prince staggered, lost his balance and fell backwards into the river, where the mud and the rushes caught him and held him fast.

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**Who acts:** prince, mud · **What happens:** stagger, lose, fall, catch, hold, balance · **To what, where:** balance, river, prince

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, mud), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3282:26:40
# text = The prince staggered, lost his balance and fell backwards into the river, where the mud and the rushes caught him and held him fast.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	staggered	stagger	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	lost	lose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	balance	balance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	backwards	backwards	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	into	into	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
15	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	21	advmod	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	rushes	rush	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	_
21	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
22	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
25	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stagger** | past | the prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **lose** | past | the prince *not said here* | prince's balance |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent balance=Eventuality |
| 3 | **fall** | past | the prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  | into the river *result*; backwards *property* | vn become-109.1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient into river=Result |
| 4 | **catch** | past | the mud and the rushes | prince |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 5 | **hold** | past | the mud and the rushes *not said here* | prince |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 6 | **balance** |  | prince |  |  |  |  |  | nom balance «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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